John Pike, the former University of California police officer who became notorious for casually pepper spraying UC Davis student protesters two years ago, has received $38,059 in workers' compensation.
Pike, who became known as "Pepper Spray Cop," spawned an Internet meme featuring his image Photoshopped in various historical and fictional scenarios, like the one below.
SFGate reported that Pike was awarded the settlement by California's Division of Workers' Compensation Appeals Board:
The claim "resolves all claims of psychiatric injury specific or due to continuous trauma from applicant's employment at UC Davis."
After the video clips and images depicting Pike spraying protesters for more than 15 seconds with orange pepper spray went viral, he received more than 17,000 angry or threatening emails, 10,000 text messages and hundreds of letters. According to the police union, Pike had to repeatedly change his phone number and emails and lived in various locations to avoid his detractors.
The psychiatrist consulted by the board classified Pike's disability as "moderate," as he faced "continuing and significant internal and external stress with respect to resolving and solving the significant emotional upheavals that have occurred” in his life and had not shown evidence of substantial improvement, as reported by The Davis Enterprise.
The settlement, according to California lawyer Bernie Goldsmith, sends "a clear message to the next officer nervously facing off with a group of passive, unarmed students: Go on ahead. Brutalize them. Trample their rights. You will be well taken care of."
UC Davis had also settled with the students who got sprayed. A total of 21 plaintiff split the pay out of $1 million, which after attorney's fees, is about $30,000 each or less than what Pike got.
Note: We're happy to introduce a new experimental feature on Neatorama! Our NeatoFacto blog features self-contained "neat fact" graphics that's easily shareable on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
We hope you like it! And remember, please share it along!
It took twenty years for Walt Disney to create the Haunted Mansion. The whole thing actually began well before Disneyland came into being. Disney had always wanted a spooky haunted house attraction for the theme park (he even commissioned Disney Legend Harper Goff to draw some sketches), but Disneyland opened in 1955 without it.
Three years later, Disney decided to expand Disneyland and the effort to create the Haunted Mansion began in earnest. The first plan for the mansion called for an old New Orleans-style antebellum manor with boarded doors and windows and overgrown with weeds and dead trees. Disney, however, didn't like the idea of a run-down building in his park and said, "We'll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside."
Disney put Imagineers Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey in charge of building the Haunted Mansion special effects. The two had plenty of ideas and apparently often left the special effects running all night long. The night cleaning crew were spooked and complained to the management, who in turn, asked Crump and Gracey not to scare them off.
But instead of leaving the lights on and the special effects off, Crump and Gracey decided to connect their "spectral effects" to a motion-detector switch. When the duo came in the morning, they found a broom hastily left in the middle of their studios. The Imagineers had to clean their studios by themselves from that point on, as management told them that the night cleaning crew were never coming back.
Bonus Fact: The Real Ghost that Visited Haunted Mansion Creator Yale Gracey
When they were working on the Haunted Mansion special effects, Crump asked Gracey whether he had any experience with the supernatural. "Oh yeah, I had a ghost read to me when I was 10 years old," Yale replied without hesitation, as reported by Disney History Institute.
Crump told the story, which went like this: When Gracey was a child, he and his mother went to visit relatives on the East Coast for the summer. They lived in a big old house, and Gracey and his cousins would sleep together in a large bedroom, with an old lady who lived in the closet. The lady would come out and read stories to the kids, under the condition that the children do not talk about the lady to the grownups or she'd disappear forever.
At the end of the summer, Gracey's mother asked him what he liked best about the vacation and the small boy replied, "The little lady that lives in the closet that reads to us every night." Gracey's mom was surprised and the children were mad at him, saying "No, no, Yale, she'll never come back."
Crump said that Gracey's mother was so concerned that she went to the local history society and found a photo of the woman who lived there. When she showed it to the kids, they said that she was the lady that lived in the closet.
Did Gracey make the whole thing up? Disney History Institute reported that Crump swore that this was exactly as Gracey had told him. "Yale would never make anything up. He was about as straight as they come," Crump added, "As far as I'm concerned it's true. It can't be any truer than that."
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will prevent your loyal postman from delivering mail, but a friendly black and white cat can most definitely delay it a little bit!
Here's postman Patrick McIntyre, who was delivering a parcel when he knelt down to write out a card for a customer when a neighborhood cat decided to make friends.
Okay. A postman. Named Pat. With a black and white cat. Now that can't be a coincidence! Amirite? Special Delivery Service!
If you love scotch - Scotchy Scotch Scotch like Ron Burgundy of Anchorman and you want it to go down, down into your belly - well, you're in luck.
Ben & Jerry's, which is kind of like a big deal in the ice cream business, is releasing a new flavor of ice cream, named Scotchy Scotch Scotch, as a tie-in to the sequel movie Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. It's Butterscotch ice cream with Butterscotch Swirls. By the beard of Zeus, noo actual Scotch, sadly. But still, don't act like you're not impressed.
The flavor was unveiled in an event kicked off with - what else? - a performance by Nutty the Waterskiing Squirrel, followed with a Ben & Jerry's ice cream truck decked out to look like Channel 4 News truck (complete with blazer-wearing Ron Burgundy look-alikes).
Burgundy himself was pleased that Ben & Jerry's released the new ice cream flavor. "I hope [they] consider my other suggestion. Malt liquor marshmallow, well liquor bourbon peanut butter, and cheap white wine sherbert," he added.
We're not sure whether the ice cream comes with its own trident spoon, but it should. And kudos to Ben & Jerry's, who stayed classy, for creating this. They're so wise. And Jerry Greenfield - the Jerry in Ben & Jerry's - is actually like a (not so) miniature Buddha, covered in hair. After all, 60 percent of the time, limited edition movie tie-ins like this works all the time.
Today, October 23 (or 10/23, as it's written the American way), from 6:02 am to 6:02 pm, is Mole Day. No, it's not a day for freckles, spies, Mexican sauce, or cute little burrowing mammals. Rather it's the day to celebrate the chemical unit the "mole."
What is a mole, you ask, having forgotten high school chemistry. A mole of something is 6.02 x 10^23 of it (kind of like a dozen of eggs is 12 eggs, a mole of eggs is 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 eggs*.)
*okay, technically, it's 602,214,129,270,000,000,000,000 eggs (give or take a few quintillion - scientists can't agree on the exact number).
So, with that out of the way, here are 5 fun facts about the mole and Mole Day:
1. The mole is attributed to 18th century Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro, whose full name is Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro di Queregna e di Cerreto.
Man, that's a long name, but it somehow fits the long number that now bears his name (6.02 x 10^23 is called Avogadro's Constant). His parents called him Amedeo Carlo Avogadro.
We won't get into the technical aspects, but in 1811 Avogadro proposed a law (now known as Avogadro's Law) stating that equal volume of all gasses, at the same temperature and presssure, have the same number of molecules.
As with many scientific accomplishments of that age, Avogadro's findings were promptly ignored. It took about a hundred years for the scientific community to get around to appreciating what he's done. In 1909, French chemist and Nobel laureate Jean Baptiste Perrin proposed that quantity of molecules be called "Avogadro's Constant."
2. Mole Day was proposed in an article in The Science Teacher in early 1980s. Inspired by the article, Maurice Oehler, a chemistry teacher (now retired) in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, created the National Mole Day Foundation in 1991.
3. Did you know that the Mole Day has annual themes? Here they are:
1991
The Mole The Merrier
1992
Go For The Mole
1993
Mole Out The Barrel
1994
An Ace in The Mole
1995
Moledi Gras
1996
Molemorial Day
1997
We Dig Chemistry
1998
Ride the Molercoaster
1999
It's A MOLE World
2000
Celebrate the Molennium
2001
Molar Odyssey
2002
Molar Reflections
2003
Rock 'n Mole
2004
Pi a la MOLE
2005
Moles-Go-Round
2006
Mole Madness
2007
Secret Agent Double Mole Seven in Moles are Forever
2008
Remember the Alamole
2009
Molar Express
2010
Moles of the Round Table
2011
Molar Eclipse
2012
Animole Kingdom
4. To help you celebrate, here's the Molemorial Day song by Michael Offutt (that's the theme of the Mole Day in 1996, when Offutt recorded the song). Actually Offutt created a whole album, titled "Molennium," filled with songs about the mole.
5. As you can probably guess, a mole (6.02 x 10^23) is a VERY large number. But, what does a mole of moles look like? What if we release a mole of moles onto our planet? xkcd explains:
An eastern mole (Scalopus aquaticus) weighs about 75 grams, which means a mole of moles weighs (6.022×10^23)×75g≈4.52×10^22kg.
That’s a little over half the mass of our moon.
Mammals are largely water. A kilogram of water takes up a liter of volume, so if the moles weigh 4.52×10^22 kilograms, they take up about 4.52×10^22 liters of volume. You might notice that we’re ignoring the pockets of space between the moles. In a moment, you’ll see why.
The cube root of 4.52×10^22 liters is 3,562 kilometers, which means we’re talking about a sphere with a radius of 2,210 kilometers, or a cube 2,213 miles on each edge. (That’s a neat coincidence I’ve never noticed before—a cubic mile happens to be almost exactly 4/3pi cubic kilometers, so a sphere with a radius of X kilometers has the same volume as a cube that’s X miles on each side.)
If these moles were released onto the Earth’s surface, they’d fill it up to 80 kilometers deep—just about to the (former) edge of space:
Poor Batman. It's no wonder that the Dark Knight is so gloomy - he's just no good at relationships.
First, it was Julie Madison who broke it off with him after his father died at the hands of Sal "The Boss" Maroni (who threw acid at Harvey Dent, turning him into Two Face).
Next was Silver St. Cloud, who discovered Bruce Wayne's secret and dumped him because she didn't want to live with the constant fear of losing him (she later reconnected with Batman after her fiance was killed by the Joker, but in a twist of fate, she was herself killed by yet another one of Batman's enemies).
Then, there was Rachel Caspian, the woman for whom Batman was willing to end his crimefighting career to marry. But she turned out to be the daughter of the murderous Reaper, and as penance for her father's crime, she became a nun.
Oh, and who can forget Sasha Bordeaux, who helped Batman fight crime but was framed and put in jail for a murder she did not commit. There, she was injured by other prisoners and was turned into a cyborg by a secret governmental spy agency.
The list goes on and on, as explained over at DC Comics Database, and as you can see, being Batman's girlfriend is often dangerous to a woman's health. So, if the Caped Crusader asked you to be part of his Dynamic Duo, the right answer is to run away as fast as you could.
Meet Hillhock, a hand stitched, dusty pink velvet and pink satin-upholstered chair, with two hand carved walnut hooves and two glass taxidermy eyes.
The oink-worthy porcine furniture, made by Philadelpia-based Etsy seller Pavia Burroughs, is comfy enough for your tush and is definitely easy on the eyes. Why, it's perfect for any decor! (Can't you imagine yourself sitting comfortably in the pig chair, eating strips of bacon?)
View this and more animal-inspired furnitures over at io9.
America, country music legend Willie Nelson once said, is freedom. Freedom to make a cake bearing his likeness, that is.
Natalie Sideserf of Sideserf Cake Studio in Austin, Texas, really takes it to the limit with her Willie Nelson cake. She won "Best of All Divisions" in Austin's "That Takes the Cake Sugar Art Show" by Capital Confectioners back in February 2013. The half a man cake features Nelson's signature bandana and braided hair. Words don't fit the picture, but you can almost taste Willie's guitar twang just lookin' at the cake.
As the saying goes, hard work never killed anybody, but the French aren't taking any chances*. The country's left-leaning government is famous for instituting a controversial 35-hour workweek and a ban on stores from opening on Sundays. (*kidding - no hate mail, please!)
There is one segment of the French population who's perplexed at the notion that working less is good for you: the Chinese immigrants, who are taking over France's "bar tabac" (basically a small pub/shop selling tobacco and other small items) businesses through hard work.
"As I see it, when you work, you're paid. So why stop at 35 hours?" Zhang Chang, owner of Cafe Le Marais in central Paris, said to Reuters. "We the Chinese think all the unemployment is because people can't work enough," added Xiao, a restaurant owner nearby.
Native French bar-tabac owners are being outcompeted left and right. Patric Loubiere, who runs a bar-tabac that his parents started a generation ago lamented, "I'm the only one left. The younger generation doesn't want to do it. It's too early in the morning for some, too late at night for others. They're getting lazy."
But not everyone admires the Chinese immigrants' work ethics. French authorities pointed to a report that shows while some entrepreneurs are enjoying economic success, many immigrants are actually being exploited - they're forced to work long hours for little pay in restaurants and sweatshops. Some accuse Chinese bar-tabac owners of not paying taxes.
According to Reuters, conservative magazine Le Pointe published an article asking "How the devil do they do it?" and answered it with these "five commandments":
1) work 80 hours a week 2) sleep in your shop 3) don't pay your employees as they are family members 4) don't contribute to the system and 5) don't pay taxes.
Do the conservatives have a valid point here? Or are the Chinese beating the French by working harder? What do you think?
Alexandria Sage and Nicholas Vinocur has the full story over at Reuters. (Photo: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters)
Christopher Hunt of Ogilvy & Mather Dubai used Google autocomplete to bring attention to gender inequality in this print ad campaign for United Nations Women.
Hunt noted that the advertisements, titled Auto Complete Truth, used actual Google search autocomplete results, as queried on March 9, 2013. While different Google users in various countries may see different results, some of the autocompletes referenced in the ad showed in our own quick test (see below for the different autocomplete results for search queries for the exact term, but using "men" instead of "women.")
No, that's not the Tea Partiers throwing a temper tantrum.
Kathy Sterner was getting fed up that her 6-year-old daughter was throwing a tantrum in her room. Thankfully, dad was there to provide a bit of comic relief: he lip-synched the kid's tantrum and mom captured the whole thing on video.
Oh, and for the record, Sterner said that her daughter is "not typically a beast child - she's actually a pretty awesome little kid who was having a rough day." Make that an Internet-famous little kid who just had her tantrum broadcast for the entire world to see.
To celebrate 50 years of time travel, BBC is releasing a special episode of Doctor Who, titled The Day of the Doctor starring Matt Smith (the Eleventh Doctor, of course) and David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor), with Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), and John Hurt (Doctor Who? That's part of the mystery).
(This trailer does not include any actual footage of the 50th episode)
Doctor Who writer Steve Moffat told Digital Spy, "Most things that have been said about the 50th are not true ... Normally I am responsible for the disinformation and the rubbish rumors - I usually put them out myself, but I haven't needed to for this one" He added, "People are spinning off the most amazing things - it's absolutely mental!"
Photo: Charles Marville/Musee Carnavalet/Roger-Viollet
Well, in 1876 when the photo above was taken by photographer Charles Marville, Paris certainly was the most modern city in the world.
In the early 1850s, Napoleon III commissioned urban planner Baron Georges-Eugene Haussman with the task of making Paris the most modern city in the world. Back then, the city was just as it was during Medieval times. It didn't have a sewer system, so people would simply throw waste out onto the street.
As part of the modernization effort, Haussman installed outdoor facilities including pissoirs or public urinals for men shown above. These crude structures don't look like much today, but it got the job done. It had no roof, but it provided privacy where it was needed, and it was certainly better than urinating on the streets.
Charles Marville, the photographer who snapped the photo above, was commissioned to document Haussman's transformation of Paris. His photographs are currently on display National Gallery of Art. Curator Sarah Kennel talked to Susan Stamberg of NPR about the photos that Marville took - read and listen to the story over at NPR's The Picture Show.
Did that hit too close to hom? NeatoShop artist and cartoonist extraordinaire Mike Jacobsen drew a panel that tells it like it is: we're just moving pixels around, folks - for a living and for entertainment alike (where day is like "Good bye Excel, Hello Xbox!")
View more of Jacobsen's bitingly funny webcomics over at his blog See Mike Draw, then head on over to his NeatoShop catalog to see some of them in T-shirt form. (Go buy something, so he doesn't have to spend all day in his cubicle coming up with cartoon ideas wontcha?)
My kids call my office "the place where Daddy lives," and judging by the amount of hours that I spend at NeatoHQ, they're technically correct. But I do go "home" to shower and sleep - not so for The Office Hobo, who lives - and we really do mean live - at his office.
One day last winter, The Office Hobo stopped by his office late at night after running errands to find that the place is nice and quiet - "No thumping bass from the upstairs neighbors. No security guard manning the premises, either. Someone could be here all night ... and not a soul would be wiser," he wrote in a blog post over at LA Weekly. Someone, in theory, could live in that office.
Then, over the summer, after a series of financial setback and the general feeling of being tired of paying rent, The Office Hobo revisited the idea of living in his office:
This is my experiment. It is rent boycotting. It is selective homelessness. I prefer to call it "home-free" living.
On Aug. 1, 2012, I packed my bags, secured a gym membership for shower access, and moved into my office. Save for a short hiatus of apartment living during the winter, I have been living there since.
I've chosen to remain anonymous to protect my company. None of my co-workers knows I'm living here. The people I work with are wonderful people; I want neither to accept their sympathy nor take advantage of their kindness. This presents a series of obstacles, and yes, I expend great energy to accommodate their schedules.
So far, The Office Hobo has been living in his office, secretly, for over 260 days.
But how does he do it? Where does he sleep? The Office Hobo offered a set of FAQs:
1. Where do you sleep?
I sleep on the floor behind my desk.
Initially, I had a twin-sized air mattress that fit perfectly behind my desk. But that mattress has since popped. For a while, I had been using my inflatable backpacking sleeping pad, but that became more trouble than the inch of cushion was worth. So instead of purchasing a replacement air mattress, I’ve been sleeping on some couch cushions. Since I’ve done so, I’ve had no back pain and have slept like a baby. A baby in an office.
As a backup plan, I sometimes take this setup to the walk-in storage closet. While hardly ideal, this lowers the likelihood of being caught in the act of not being awake.
2. Doesn't sleeping in your office suck though?
Yes and no. There is very little traffic in the office and the hours are generally predictable. The office has its own dedicated entrance, free parking, and is located near to the necessities. It has a sink and toilet, as well as a kitchenette. But it is a shared office. There are a series of cubicles and a handful of coworkers’ schedules to keep track of. So practically it requires some flexibility on my part. But so did paying over a grand per month in rent.
... back in March, when my co-worker stopped by unannounced to drop off a tray of files on a Sunday. Somehow, I managed to tidy my cubicle and bolt to the staff bathroom in a matter of seconds.
It was a close call. And hiding in a unisex washroom is, admittedly, a humbling experience. But the way I see it, inconveniences like these constitute my "rent." What others pay in earnings from countless hours of labor, I forfeit in sporadic exercises of self-deprecation. Having experienced both, I can't say my situation is any worse.
My situation just requires a little extra attention to detail. When I wake up in the morning, I always return my triple-sofa-cushion bedding to the same spot, zippers facing in. My belongings — the ones I haven't given away — are stuffed in odd corners of the office, placed one at a time over the first few weeks with frog-in-a-frying-pan success. I keep the fridge clear, opting instead to over-frequent the local sandwich shop and burrito stand. Sometimes I'll even run morning errands and show up "late for work."
The Office Hobo was content and happy to live the rent-free life, but then one day, he met a woman. A woman that he wants to be with ... and wants to be with him that night. Read what happened next over at LA Weekly's Arts & Culture Blog Public Spectacle, where The Office Hobo guestblogged.
